


Letting It Linger

by austinthegrouch



Series: Hazy Midmorning Dreams (Why can't I stop writing about Ginny) [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Names, Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 04:37:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austinthegrouch/pseuds/austinthegrouch
Summary: Ginny doesn't name her sons. This is why.





	Letting It Linger

Ginny doesn't name her sons despite the fact that she's paid to deal with words. If it was up to her, they'd have names without pasts, no expectations or burdens to live up to.

But it wasn't. And she respects it. Harry needed ( _needs_ ) the idea of legacies, the idea that his father and Sirius and Dumbledore and Snape (even if Ginny will never really understand the root of that particular admiration) will live on, live better. 

She just wishes she'd had the option, even if she wouldn't have taken it. She has her own names, her own regrets, the swelling syllables of _Colin, Colin, Colin_ pounding through her head the first time she lays eyes on her first born child, hair neither black nor red settling on a soft brown. But that name is not hers to keep, for memories of a smaller tag along sweep in to join the first. It's his brother's right, the way Fred could only be George's child. It's the way an orphan longs for his father, his godfather.

So she just smiles when Harry whispers James Sirius as if saying a prayer and holds him as if he's afraid to let go. She thinks she'll call him Jamie.

 

Albus Severus is the same. So delicate and small, saddled with the names of two powerful, incredibly divisive men, and she wishes Harry'd chosen anyone else, for Snape was neither a good man nor a great one, for all his complexities and devotion. Dumbledore was great but not good, despite his kindness, and so terribly lonely. She won't ( _can't_ ) imagine her son going down the same road. 

So why was it that when she almost called him Tom, the first time he laid on her breast, Harry watching in awe as if it was something he'd never seen? Those old men were all the same, lonely broken boys gifted with magic and taking themselves too far. Harry could've followed. Albus ( _Al_ ) won't. She'll make sure of it.

 

It's not until her daughter that she makes a suggestion, her bright redhaired girl too sunny for the Minerva on the tip of Harry's tongue. Nymphadora belongs to Teddy and the woman herself had despised it. She stops him and says she'll be Luna, Lily Luna, _Lils_ , after the intense mother-in-law she'll never meet, so vivid in her teachers' stories, and after her best friend. Other than her daughter, she's the only girl she'll ever love. It's a name with no burdens, just quiet memories and a bittersweet smile. Harry laughs, a wet sound, and kisses her forehead.

This time, Ginny writes the name in the registry.


End file.
